Health and medicine news

Twenty-nine students from seven Montreal area high schools will assemble at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital – The Neuro at McGill University on February 23 to be quizzed about synapses, axons and other cerebral facts in the international contest known as the Brain Bee.

McGill's Montreal Neurological Institute conducted a study using MRI imaging looking at brain activity. They found that MRI results of those athletes who had suffered from concussions had similar patterns of brain activity as people with major depressive disorder.

Chicken meat may be a source of E. coli bacteria that is making its way into people and causing infections, a new study suggests. The study compared strains of E. coli bacteria in poultry and other meats to the strains found to have been causing urinary tract infections in women in Montreal from June 2005 to May 2007.

Remember the pain from that broken bone, that arthritic joint, that migraine that knocked you off your feet for days? Your nervous system does, too, and now researchers at McGill University say they've discovered how those neuronal memories can be erased.

A team of researchers led by McGill neuroscientist Terence Coderre, who is also affiliated with the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, has found the key to understanding how memories of pain are stored in the brain. More importantly, the researchers are also able to suggest how these memories can be erased, making it possible to ease chronic pain.

About 800 people attended a sold out fundraiser for the McGill University Health Centre on Feb. 4 called Dancing with the Docs. The event, which took place at Metropolis, raised $203,000 for the centre's Best Care for Life campaign.

Neuropsychology researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital – The Neuro, McGill University, have found that two areas of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) are critical for either detecting or distinguishing emotions from facial expressions.

Researchers at The Neuro and the University of Maryland have figured out the mathematical calculations that specific neurons employ in order to inform us of our distance from an object and the 3D velocities of moving objects and surfaces relative to ourselves.